The Price of a Broken Heart
by Avalon3
Summary: After School Reunion Rose mulls over what Sarah Jane said to her.


The Price of a Broken Heart

"_Some things are worth getting your heart broken for."_

Rose lay back on her bed, letting the words wash over her. It had been a long day. Longer than most. Meeting Sarah Jane Smith had been…illuminating. Why had she never considered that the Doctor had travelled with others before her? The man was over 900 years old; of course he would have had – companionship. To believe that she was the first, in all those years… _Idiot. Arrogant, stupid idiot!_

Sarah Jane had shaken her. Not the woman herself – the journalist had ended up being fairly likeable, after a somewhat rocky start between them. No, the mere _existence _of her had shaken Rose to the core.

_Is that how I'll end up? Dumped somewhere along the way when he tires of me? _

No. The Doctor wouldn't do that. He had said so. She _knew _that. And yet… She'd already lost him once. What if it happened again? Only permanently this time. How would she bear it?

_Did you love her? _she wanted to ask him, but knew she never would. One, there was no way to ask that and _not_ sound jealous. And two, of course he had loved her. Rose had seen that for herself. But in what way? Sister? Friend? Third cousin twice removed? Or the "I-want-to-shag-you-until-I-can't-walk-straight" kind of love?

Sarah Jane had loved the Doctor. That much had been obvious too. And yet he had still left her, abandoning her in Aberdeen with absolutely no warning.

_I love the Doctor._ Well, she'd known that for quite a while, even if she'd never said it out loud, or even thought it in so many words. _I love him. Not _like a sister. He was her friend, yes, her very best friend, but it was more than that. To be perfectly honest, most of the time she wanted to shag him silly, and sometimes thought the feeling might even be reciprocated, but it was so hard to tell with him. As she had once said, laughingly, it was a hell of an age difference. Too much? Maybe.

He had never mentioned Sarah Jane. But that didn't mean she hadn't mattered to him. _Will that be me, someday? _The Doctor was right – even if Rose spent her entire life with him, someday she would die and he would have to go on without her. He would find someone else to travel with, and would likely never mention her name again. But that didn't mean he would forget her. He hadn't forgotten Sarah Jane, had he? Maybe Rose should take some comfort from that. And to be remembered by a being that would live for – well, not forever, but much, much longer than any human ever could… That was a form of immortality, wasn't it? To be remembered by the Doctor, by the last Time Lord… That meant something. That meant she was important. More important that plain Rose Tyler, shop girl, could ever be.

For a moment, Rose caught a glimpse – just a glimpse – of what it was like to be the Doctor. To outlive everyone you cared about, to leave behind all the people you loved… She couldn't even imagine that amount of pain, couldn't imagine the courage it took to keep reaching out to others, knowing all the while that you would lose them, one way or another.

So? What now? She could go on moping – and Rose was honest enough to admit to herself that that's what she'd been doing – or she could deal with it, and move on. She had today, after all, and the next day, and with any luck, the next. Yes, the Doctor might leave her behind someday – he'd already done it once, for heaven's sake – and yes, there might even come a day when she would choose to leave him. They led a dangerous life. Perhaps she would tire of it eventually. One or the other of them might die. _Really_ die, in his case. A parting between them might not even be on purpose. It would be all too easy to become separated and lost in time, and never find each other again.

_You knew the risks when you signed on_, Rose told herself. And she did – Daleks, Slitheen, werewolves, gas mask zombies – the list was endless. Humans were so fragile, and there were so many ways for life to end. But even if she were at home, she wouldn't necessarily be safe. She could still be hit by a bus on the way to work. Her place of employment could explode – like _that_ had never happened before. No, life was fragile and precarious, wherever and _whenever_ you happened to be.

But she hadn't known about the risk to her heart when she first ran into the TARDIS, had she? She had never thought about what would happen _after. _After the Doctor. If there was an _after. _How do you pick up the threads of an old life? She had seen the Lord of the Rings – she had made the Doctor go back to 2001 so she could see the opening in Wellington – and she knew what happened to Frodo. Tolkien was right. Some hurts _were_ too deep to heal. She had seen that truth shining in Sarah Jane's eyes; might someday see it looking in a mirror.

And yet…and yet it was all worth it, wasn't it? Travelling with the Doctor, just _being_ with him… Yes, it _was_ worth it, worth the fear, the pain, the risk of death, the certainty of future anguish when he was gone from her life… _Live for today, because today is all you have. _Abruptly, Rose sat up, dashed the back of her hand across her eyes, which were suspiciously damp, and stood up. So be it. She would take her own advice, and Sarah Jane's. She would stay with the Doctor, and try not to worry too much about what was to come. She would find joy where she could, and endure what she could not.

After all, some people are worth a broken heart.

FIN


End file.
